1. Field of the Disclosure
Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure relate to an image processing apparatus, such as a printer and a multifunctional periphery, that outputs document information as a visible image on a sheet of paper or other recording medium, and more specifically, an image processing apparatus that manages image output in which a plurality of files is combined to output an image, a method of managing the image output, and a storage medium that stores program codes causing an image processing apparatus to execute the method of managing the image output.
2. Description of the Background
As image processing apparatuses that perform processing for representing document information as a visible image on a sheet of paper or other recording medium, for example, printers and multi-functional peripherals (MFPs) are widely used.
Such an image processing apparatus may be connected to a network and utilized by external devices via the network. Such external devices include, for example, personal computers (PC) or servers that create and use document information, and exchange data with the image processing apparatus to constitute an image processing system.
In such an image processing system, the image processing apparatus is used in various ways. For example, a plurality of users may create documents using different means and request the image processing apparatus to output (print) the documents as images in accordance with different output conditions. Hence, the image processing apparatus may have capabilities of processing such a request. In such a case, generally, the image processing system handles target documents in the form of files. Such target document files may contain not only text but also images and graphics, and the term “document” used herein refers to the above-described document file to be processed by the image processing system.
Receiving the image-output request, the image processing apparatus temporarily stores a plurality of documents received, combines (merges) the plurality of documents into a single merged document, and outputs (prints) the merged document as an image. For such processing, a conventional management technique is proposed that determines whether target documents can be merged and, if it is determined that the target documents cannot be merged, stops printing the documents.
Such merging is proposed in, for example, JP-2006-139611-A. In JP-2006-139611-A, to reduce the burden on an operator who instructs merging, a document management method is proposed that virtually combines a plurality of document files into a single combined document to print the document files as virtually combined. In the management of the virtually-combined documents, if a document to be combined or a sub-group of documents is set so as not to be printed, the document or sub-group is not printed.
For such a conventional technique of managing merging, however, only in printing or registering an entire (merged) document is it confirmed whether there is an unprintable document among target documents to be merged and determined whether the respective target documents can be printed. Thus, the output of the merged document depends on the determination results. Further, if there is a conflict in the setting of output conditions between the merged document created by the merging and each of the target documents, stopping the printing is performed by the above-described management function.
Even when printing is stopped by the conflict in the setting of output conditions, however, in certain cases modifying the setting to solve the conflict allows the merged document to be printed. However, the creators of the respective documents have no way of knowing which documents should be modified or how the documents should be modified, and thus cannot easily modify the settings so as to enable the merged document to be outputted.